GAOL SENTENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 8

GAOL SENTENCE

PACIFIST SPEAKER

CHARGE OF OBSTRUCTION

POLICE HEAD'S COMMENT

Though he pleaded not guilty in the Magistrate's Court today to a charge of obstructing Superintendent C. W. Lopdell in the execution of his duty on Friday, night, Harold Roy Bray, aged 22, a farm labourer, who was slated to belong to the Christian Pacifist Society, was convicted by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., • and sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. "This man belongs," said the Superintendent, "to the Christian Pacifist Society, an association with a religious name but very subversive purposes. . . . It is significant that this man and I think a majority of the others who have been charged are single men of military age, some of whom have been caught in the. ballot and have failed in their appeals against overseas service. They have come from districts as far away as Nelson and the Waikato. The accused came down from the Waikato to take his turn, he said, in speaking here. It is noticeable that some- of them are not practised public speakers, and it is suggested that they have come here because of their failure to get out of military service and the probability of finding a safe place by being charged and' sentenced. "TOLD TO GO AWAY." In evidence Superintendent Lopdell said that on Friday night'he went to the reserve between . Manners and Dixon Streets where the Christian Pacifist Society usually had a speaker on Friday nights. A crowd of 200 or 300 people were there. The accused stood on a box and began to read from notes by the light of a torch. He refused to cease speaking when the witness told him he had prohibited the meeting. Police took him to the edge of the crowd and told him to go away, but he returned, and when he started to address the crowd again he was arrested. "His effort to be arrested was most deliberate," said the superintendent, who added that he had prohibited the meeting because he feared there might be subversive statements with consequent trouble.

Cross-examined by the accused the superintendent said the crowd was orderly but not sympathetic. The speaker's notes, in the possession of the police, were not subversive.

Corroborative evidence was given by Detective P. C. Smeaton and Sergeant F. J. P. Bonnington.

Bray said he would not give evidence but would make a statement. He began to read from notes, and had stated that Christ and war were irreconcilable when Mr. Stout told him to keep to the case, because he was not going to allow Bray to use the court for propaganda purposes.

"That is all I have to say, sir," replied Bray, and Mr. Stout then imposed sentence.